A Guide to Making Bank-to-Bank Payments Using Repetitive Codes

by Kees van Westerop, Senior SAP Consultant, Kwest Consulting

October 10, 2010

In SAP ERP Central Component most companies use transaction F110 to make payments from their SAP system. This transaction selects open customer and vendor items that are due before the next payment run is made. This program cannot be used to make bank transfers that are not based on customer and vendor open items. For those cases you must use payment requests. In principle a payment request is a document that is used for creating payment media with transaction F111. Payment media are methods to order the bank to make a transfer. Examples are files, checks, and bills of exchange. Learn how to set up repetitive codes, create a transfer using these codes, and customize settings needed to complete bank-to-bank transfers.

Key Concept

For payments not based on open items, such as transfers between banks, you must use payment requests combined with payment transaction F111. To facilitate periodic payments you can use repetitive codes. A repetitive code is a key that determines the payment transfer data that remains unchanged. The repetitive code contains the sender company code, sender bank, sender account, receiving company code, recipient bank, recipient account, payment method, and currency. The only changeable fields are the amount and the note to the payee. The use of repetitive codes and payment requests is part of the bank accounting functionality.

To explain how bank-to-bank transfers work, I first set up a repetitive code and create the transfer using the repetitive code. I then explain the required configuration.

Preparation of the Business Process

As a first step of the business process, you have to create the repetitive codes. You create repetitive codes once. After you create these codes, you can use them over and over again. In principle, a repetitive code is nothing other than a tool to keep sender information, receiver information, and payment information.

You maintain repetitive codes using transaction code OT81. Follow menu path Accounting > Financial Accounting > Banks > Master Data > Repetitive codes. Figure 1 shows the screen of this transaction. When you start it, enter the company code, house bank, and bank account ID for which you want to maintain the repetitive code. As you can see in Figure 1, no repetitive code exists yet. If you want to get a complete list of all available repetitive codes, click the configurable list icon at the top of the screen shown in Figure 1.

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Kees van Westerop

Kees van Westerop has been working as an SAP consultant for more than 25 years. He has an MBA degree in mathematics and a degree in finance. Kees has been concentrating on the financial modules, especially in general ledger accounting, cost center accounting, and consolidation. He also has a great deal of experience with rollouts of kernel systems and integrating finance and logistics.